Brief Report of Legal Career Forum 2014

As mentioned in our previous post, eLawyer Recruitment was the co-organiser of the Legal Career Forum with KL Bar Pupils Committee (PC) and Young Lawyers Committee (YLC) which was held on 6th December 2014 at the Raja Aziz Addruse Auditorium.

The purpose of the forum was to inform the participants of the legal career opportunities available by sharing views of lawyers from different practice areas.

More than 70 participants attended the forum and some commented that the forum provided them with valuable insights that would help them make better and informed decisions with regards to their career path, especially in the different areas of practice.

(Participants listening attentively)

Eddie gave a speech on the topic of how to succeed in one’s legal career and legal talent retention. In respect of a lawyer succeeding in his or her legal career, Eddie shared the principle of “SPM” (namely Strategy, Purpose & Mentor) to elaborate how a lawyer is able to succeed and be ahead than the rest in their legal career.

In respect of legal talent retention, Eddie began with identifying the underlying issues that cause legal talents to leave a law firm. He further went on to elaborate how by using the 3 Es (Engagement, Enable & Energize) as one of the main solutions to improve the situation.

During the forum, the participants were given a survey form to fill up. The survey concentrated mainly on the participants feedback with regards to their job satisfaction and their main influences in their career decision making process. Many seemed to favour relationships with bosses and colleagues and work life balance as the main factors in deciding whether to switch jobs. It was also interesting on how more of the junior participants stated the ‘lack of challenge in a job’ as one of the main reasons for them to leave their current job while the more senior participants favoured workplace relationship and work life balance.

After Eddie completed his speech, an interactive forum by the young and successful talented lawyers began.

The below panel of speakers have more than 10 years of practice in their respective area and were sharing their insights on the area of practices they are in:

There were 2 common traits among all the speakers which made them who they are today, which are: passion in what they do and perseverance while facing challenges in their career.

Under the moderation of Peter Ling, this session was highly interactive and each speaker tried their best to answer all the participants’ questions. We hope that this event helped to shed some light on the participants and that they inculcate the mindset of successful lawyers through such sharing.